“So, whilst I agree with you that ‘waning immunity’ can also be a factor in outbreaks, one cannot get away from the low vaccination rates in the immediate local areas where the pertussis outbreaks occurred as being a major contributing factor, as herd immunity was compromised.”

Even if local vaccination rates are 20% lower than the national average, waning immunity is a bigger problem. In a population where the childhood vaccination rate is 100%, everyone over 12 is still vulnerable. That’s a big part of the herd.

So, I still need to get the pertussis vaccine.

‘My point is that the outbreaks in California and Australia were more likely due to waning immunity than to low vaccination rates. In both cases, vaccination rates were high.’

In relation to the pertussis outbreaks in Australia, whilst the overall national vaccination rates are high (>90%), in the local areas where the outbreaks, and sadly the deaths, occurred the vaccination rates were below that of the national rate. In fact, in the North Coast area of NSW the vaccination rate is 88%, and within the North Coast area, in the immediate local area where one of the babies contracted pertussis and very sadly died, the vaccination rate is below 70%. I may also add that this is also the area in which the Australian Vaccination Network is located and very active in promoting the anti-vaccination message. In fact, the AVN president, Meryl Dorey, is very very fond of presenting the overall Australian national statistics for vaccination rates and stating that low rates are not responsible for the outbreaks, all the while ignoring the location/population set breakdowns for the states and the areas within the states.
So, whilst I agree with you that ‘waning immunity’ can also be a factor in outbreaks, one cannot get away from the low vaccination rates in the immediate local areas where the pertussis outbreaks occurred as being a major contributing factor, as herd immunity was compromised.

Corry, I think that I did get something that sounded like “tdap” a year or two ago, but that when I investigated, I found that the “p” in what I got was polio, not pertussis. I’ll go back and check my records…

I have a child who started out life with seizures. Because of that his first pertussis vaccine was a couple of years ago when he was 18 years old. A bit over twenty years ago I had to deal with a medically frail child who had only had the DT vaccine at a time when our county was having a pertussis epidemic. I did only allow him near children who were vaccinated (especially important since this was a time when measles made a come back and killed over 120 Americans).

I did run across one group of proud non-vaccinating parents, and was appalled at their attitude towards my concerns. I especially did not like their attitude towards anyone who did not adhere to their crunchy standards. Needless to say I never darkened the door of that mother/baby group.

I participated in an online discussion group for my son’s disability many years ago. It went fine for a while, until the parents came in who I dubbed the “Mercury Militia.” Try as I could there was no reasonable way to say that the vaccines could not have caused my son’s seizures. One demanded that I be deleted from the group because I had the audacity to remind her that the MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. I kept trying to explain that testifying in front of congress did not make Rashid Buttar’s claims legitimate, and that chelation is a bad idea. So I left after finding out one of the lead anti-vax supplement and chelation pushers was actually working for a prominent DAN! doctor, Jeffrey Bradstreet.

So I have a bit of a bitter history with those parents.

The one good thing I got were emails thanking me from parents who felt they were not being good parents for not trying all the special treatments.

I agree that the new parent who is questioning should not be blamed, the high impact anti-vaxers like Handley, McCarthy, Bob Sears, Jay Gordon, Barbara Loe Fisher, the Geiers, and Wakefield should be questioned and scrutinized. They are the ones influencing confused young parents. I think they have made an impact more than the science warrants. Flushing them out and exposing them can only be good.

I’m not denying that childhood vaccine exemptions contribute to the problem; I’m saying that waning immunity is a bigger problem. Due to generally high rates of childhood vaccination, with diminished immunity after 5-10 years, adolescents and adults are now disproportionately vulnerable. Adults are also more likely to be the source of infection for infants, who have the highest mortality rates.

Unvaccinated school age children are also vulnerable, but they comprise a relatively small group compared to the unboostered 12+ population. If we want to reduce the number of cases and outbreaks, encouraging people to get the booster will be more productive than blaming anti-vaxxers. The anti-vaxxers are a hard group to convince, but there are a lot of pro-vaccine people around who have no idea that they’re supposed to have a booster.

“in most cases, these outbreaks start from an unvaccinated child being exposed”
“Of course, if the child was immunized in the first place, these outbreaks could be avoided.”

Do you have evidence to support either of these claims? While they may be true in the case of other infections, I doubt that they hold for pertussis. “Despite high coverage rates for primary immunization in infants and children, pertussis continues to be a global concern, with increased incidence widely noted.”(1) Childhood vaccination shifted the age distribution of those affected, leading to a predominance in infants, adolescents and adults. In highly vaccinated populations, adolescents and adults are the main source of infection for infants. (2) Waning immunity seems to be more of a problem than unvaccinated school age children.

(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15876918
(2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15876920

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/talk/

Hippies have become the one group it is totally acceptable to hate…and for no reason. Grow up, junior.

Woo woo woo goes the Jenny McCarthy train. Antibiotics is one of the primary reasons why you want a vaccine. The follow through rate of proper treatment of TB can become really atrocious which of course risks rendering the antibiotics useless. Its the primary reason why I haven’t actually treated myself for it yet.

That said, I now have a scalp that looks like the surface of Io and innumerable other scars.

I like your anecdote, your doctor seems a sensible man. I think it is important to weigh in multiple considerations when considering medical interventions.

We recently had an outbreak of chicken pox in my kids kindergarten.

Out of 32 children about 20 were sick. To my knowledge there were no serious complications, but it seemed that the kids were generally sick for aboout a week.

Since they are in kindergarten (like most young children in Denmark), it is safe to assume that this meant that their parents had to stay home from work for about a week. This gives about 20 weeks of lost work, for this small kindergarten.

So besides the not so small physical an mental cost for the children, by being sick, this one kindergarten experienced almost half a work year in cost because of the outbreak.

If all kids were vaccinated at a cost of perhaps $100 pr kid, then the outbreak would have been smaller or milder, and a lot of inconvenience, money and suffering could have been avoided.

So when people tell me that chicken pox is not harmful, that it is nothing, and it is silly that Nathan have been vaccinated against it, I weigh the cost of one weeks lost work, and the pain and inconvenience for Nathan against one small stab in the arm, and I know what I think is preferable!

When my kid was about a year old we saw some adds for a trial of a new MMR vaccine with an added chicken pox component.

We enrolled our kid and as a result he was fully vaccinated against MMR and chicken pox at an age of 1, when in the normal program there is no chicken pox, and you get an MMR booster shot at age 4.

It gives me great satisfaction when I run into Danish antivaxers, they are not common, but they exist, to declare that not only have I exposed my kid to a vaccination outside the program, I have also caused him to get to MMR shots only months apart, and all as test payed for by big pharma.

To some that borders on being criminal. I however have trust in the hospital and doctors involved in the trial, and of course I briefed myself on the information about the trial. Basically the vaccination have been available in the US for years, but is now being introduced in the EU. The only change is a new way of producing some of the components, using gene modified material in stead of using extracts fronm tissue.

Also for people saying vaccinations do this and that etc, do notice that when there is a suspicion authorities do react fast, as is the case in Australia.

“Tetanus toxoid is available as a single shot (TT) but is rarely given that way as it’s best to also provide needed protection against other diseases at the same time. Tetanus toxoid can be combined with diphtheria toxoid as DT (for children younger than age 7 years) or as Td (for persons age 7 years and older). It can also be combined with diphtheria and pertussis as DTaP (for children younger than age 7 years) or as Tdap (for persons ages 10 through 64 years)”

here’s a link:

http://www.vaccineinformation.org/tetanus/qandavax.asp

So, if you’re up to date on your tetanus shots, you’re probably good for pertussis, too.
(every 8 to 10 years)

It is worth noting that both my older children managed to get chicken pox itself, anyway, despite the vaccine, but they had very mild cases.

I’m not actually a UK citizen – just a resident (from Australia), but I assume that with appropriate amounts of cash I could get a vaccine across the channel. I’ll have to look into that if no-one else can suggest a UK supplier…

My point is that the outbreaks in California and Australia were more likely due to waning immunity than to low vaccination rates. In both cases, vaccination rates were high. Immunity from pertussis vaccines is known to diminish after 5-10 years. The booster for adolescents and adults only became available in 2005.

http://www.pulmonaryreviews.com/aug05/IDALERTpertussis.html